, (, ! I :; - . " l II n ; .' , . ^ 3 -: . << M -ill'? '. . ' .' ' ;,::;l ó: I ";::,?" ;-::. , ,;'_..', .'::;";,.,:;:.,:;"";,,;;,,;;.:,., ,:w"', ,,:,,:..,. , -' .1 " t.:: . ./ ,::' .... :: ..:'\.:: ' . ,'t". ;@,'l.''',.......,...,.,,,.., . .....'.. \ . -.;,;::=:::;-... ..:i"t- . ( b,1 \ .........\.:.:.' : ,0';::, Ii:',.: Jt: ': , 11 i%f.< ,: ..::.", ']" ? ' .... ,}" '><''':<<;' " .. é ,,: "'. , _. "-,-,- . .. ."_.,.,, ,._,,.....,, -. tt , \ ' ," \' ",..,.,' ' \ ,'::'.," ;;,;:. :..... . .;:: .:=* : . ".-..; - . :I ", ! Locked himself in his room, lay in bed for a couple of stunned hours, then got up, undressed in the bathroom he no longer had to share because his sister was at Rut- gers, and examined himself in the mirror. The fat! The miles of stretch marks! The tumescent horribleness of his propor- tions! He looked straight out of a Daniel Clowes comic book. Like the fat, black- ish kid in Beto Hernandez's Palomar. Jesus Christ, he whispered. I'm a Morlock. Spent a week looking at himself in the mirror, turned himself every which wa took stock, didn't flinch, and then he went to Chucho's and had the barber shave his Puerto Rican ':&0 o lost the mustache, then the glasses, bought con- tacts, was already trying to stop eating, starving himself dizzy, and the next time Al and Miggs saw him Miggs said, Dude, what's the matter with you? Changes, Oscar said pseudo-crypticall He, Miggs, and Al were never quite the same friends again. He hung out, saw movies, talked Los Brothers Hernández, Frank Miller, and Alan Moore with them but, over all, he kept his distance. Listened to their messages on the ma- chine and resisted the urge to run over to their places. Didn't see them but once, twice a week. I've been finishing up mý first novel, he told them when they asked about his absences. OSCAR. COMES CLOSE I n December, after all his college appli- cations were in (Fairleigh Dickinson, Montclair, Rutgers, Drew, Glassboro State, William Paterson; he also sent an application to N.Y.U., a one-in-a-million shot, and they rejected him so fast he was amazed the shit hadn't come back Pony Express) and winter was settling its pale, miserable ass across northern New Jerse Oscar fell in love with a girl in his S.A.T- prep class. Ana Acuña was a pretty; loud- mouthed gordita who read Henry Miller books while she should have been learn- ing to defeat problem sets. Their fifth class, he noticed her reading "Sexus," and she noticed him noticing and, lean- ing over, she showed him a passage and - '. '. :':-::<<,:-:,,-,:-::%>>:;:: ;: ,:,, :' "":' ,".. .;........:...;.>>:('o>>:-:r>>:.;.ý:-:.:.:-:.:-:.>>: -.:-.->>. .; . _ . ...._ ......00.. _00 _ . _ _ _. . ? , ' .- -... .... .... .. . . ... - .... . , . , , ". .-. .- -- ..' .. , , , , , -- -- ""' <: "'. ..-.... ....... '. ;.;..;. .. . , . , , . , , :': :::' , "-'-- , ' , , , -:: '.. '. .' ... ". '",' '" 'W""'" , . :.:: - .. . .oj;.. . .';:::-. ..'::: ::-. ::::: -. .:::'.:: :: ": : t :; : . lr! :':.' .:'-::. =::: . : ' ::. ; ": :. :: . j;Þf " j '{")\' ...'. .y,':;:-[:..., ",., , : . <;!, , ',:". : :::' :: .. ,:;.. ::":::' .:;:." ::::.:' "The Internet startup had only enough cash for one more day. But, miraculously, the money lasted for eight days, until more venture capital could be raised" he got an erection like a motherfUcker. You must think I'm weird, right she said, during the break. You ain't weird, he said. Believe me- I'm the top expert in the state. Ana was a talker, had beautiful Caribbean-girl eyes, pure anthracite, and was the sort of heavy that almost every Island nigger dug (and wasn't shy about her weight, either), and, like every other girl in the neighborhood, wore tight black stirrup pants and the sexiest under- wear she could afford. She was a peculiar combination of badmash and little girl- even before he visited her house, he knew there'd be an avalanche of stuffed animals on the bed-and there was something in the ease with which she switched be- tween these two Anas that convinced him that there existed a third Ana, who was otherwise obscure and impossible to know. She'd got into Miller because her ex-boyfriend Manny had given her the books before he joined the Arm She'd been thirteen when they started dat- ing, he'd been twenty-four, a recovering coke addict-Ana talking about these things like they weren't nothing at all. You were thirteen and your mother let you date some old-ass nigger? My parents loved Manny, she said. My mom used to cook dinner for him. He said, That's crazy: (And later, at home, he asked his sister, back on winter break, Would you let your thirteen-year- old daughter date some twenty-four-year- old guy? Sure, she snorted, right after they killed me. But they better cut my fucking head off because, believe me, I'd come back from the dead and get them both.) O SCAR and Ana in S.A.T. class, Oscar and Ana in the parking lot afterward, Oscar and Ana at the McDonald's, Oscar and Ana become friends. Each da Oscar expected her to be adiós, each day she was still there. They got into the habit of talking on the phone a couple times a week, about nothing, reall spinning words out of their everyday; the first time she called him, offering him a ride to the S.A.T. class; a week later, he called her, just to try it. His heart beating so hard he thought he would die, but all she did was say, Oscar, listen to the bullshit my sister pulled, and off they'd gC?, building an- other one of their word-scrapers. By the fifth time he called, he no longer ex-